Beauty Everlasting
by xdrysalivax
Summary: When did time become so important?
1. Act one Scene one: Gift

It had been three days; a gloved hand reached out and retreated promptly. This series of actions had been happening every so often since he returned home, reach, retreat, reach, retreat. Upon returning home from his mission he found three rolled parchment scrolls laying right beside the door of his small house. Things like this: appearing scrolls, were never really a good sign especially in a place batshit crazy like sunagakure but curiosity as they say… kills the cat. There was a feeling he got from them that was no good but… It had been three days and he could resist no longer.

A scroll promptly pressed against the table of red oak and fingers slipped open the tab smoothing it flat against the wood eyes widening as the dark pupils read over the contents. What… was this? His heart pulsed slipping a thumb over the characters of ink reading quietly to himself. "Altering your puppets and Kugutsu no Jutsu techniques and strategies…", there had to be well over 4000 different moves listed, '_this is incredible.. these moves and strategy plays are so advanced. Memorizing all of this… loosing to anyone would be almost impossible!" _ Why though would someone leave these here for him to find? ". . ." No way.

Quickly his hand grabbed the edge of the scroll and rolled it back up taking a step back. Most of those were forbidden he'd bet. No.. Kankurou had studied most Kugutsu No Jutsu scrolls available and not a single one of those plays had he ever come across. The mid-teen male shot a look to the side at the other two. Where these…?

"Stop shittin' yourself," he spoke aloud with a wave of his hand. It was probably nothing, some little kid trying to scare him after hearing about his run in. Fucking kids. Man he hated kids. The boy stopped a few meters away… that was impossible. Those techniques and strategies were very intricate, precise and perfectly written out. Only a highly skilled master would think up things like this.

A sharp pivot brought the sand-nin to face the table once more, now he really needed to know. With a quick brush of his arm all contents of his desk was cleared abruptly making way for the other two scrolls and in the same motion as before he popped open the tab of the second one splaying the smooth paper over the table. A list of poisons? Not just any list but a complete guide to the creation, effect and counter of lethal poisons and again… thousands of them. His body bent in running a finger down the list fixated on the information before him. Minutes passed before he stopped upon one in particular. Was this? Kankurou leaned in closer reading over the effects.. no.. he reread them once more.. it couldn't be.

Quicker than before he took the last scroll flattening it out in seconds and what his eyes laid upon had his body frozen in motion; Hitokugutsu. So it was. A list of forbidden techniques, poisons and now this.. the human puppet technique. Used by the one and only…

"Sasori…"


	2. Act one Scene two: Gift

Five months, one week, four days, twenty one hours, "thirty six minutes," a young voice came, sounding deeply distraught; time was ticking far to rapidly.

A body once perfected now stood in a cabin just few miles off of Sunagakure, digits working with a click in sporadic rhythm, flex than regress. Shoulders rolled, a knee bent in and head dropped; silence. Only the sand shifting along the ground in a warm dry wind was heard for a few long counts but moments later, his body reactivated in slow rigid movements, arms rising as his torso bent and leaned forward, reaching. The head connected to this vessel tilted with a snap and a foot shifted forward setting more cracks into the air with each edgy move. Finally hands laid rest on its objective.

It had been two weeks now since the encounter; the life altering battle which brought all artistic ambitions to a screeching halt. Everything the redhead believed in, his very core and cornerstone of being was swiftly swept away by the cruel desert sands, and so this is what brought him back here, to this place he abandoned years ago. The slaughter that plagued each flawless creation carried thick in the air; memories of days long ago: the first and, what he thought would be the last time he used that jutsu. The night he took down an entire country, the last night he was of the sand, and to think an old woman made him bring out an attack he hadn't needed to use in twenty years. No, not just any old woman but, Chiyobaa, his grandmother no less. Only she would still be that remarkable and only she would die so pathetically.

Neck snapped toward the side overlooking the broken pieces of his favorite puppet than, returned to the head of it which was cupped in his hands; it would take much time to reassemble him and Sasori, did not have much time, "Hiruko, we have had some good times."

_A puppets body can be rebuilt over and over completely independent from any specific timeline, they can last for as long or as short of a time as you want. With a puppet body you can become anything you desire, with a puppet body there is no pain; you carry through the years living as you so chose to and, doing as you so wished to because with a puppet body there was no end unless you wanted one. _

… _I could have collected as many people and made them this way one by one, putting them on display as perfect creations and made a perfect world. I could have picked out the best of the best and, put them into play to make them dance for just my own. I could have just taken as many people as I wanted to and stripped them of their skin and bone to say I have something wonderful that no one else does, an excellence which would last long into the days. I could have simply done all this and, all these people: daedal and beautiful, would be forever this way. I could have found them all if I wanted to and, I wanted to. _

Eyes of deep crimson would lift from his thoughts, studious upon the carved limbs lining the wall, "Sasori'sama," A voice spoke from the frame of the door causing a head to creak back in slow motion; the man took a step forward, "the scrolls have been delivered as requested."

Moonlight filtered through boarded windows of the armory cabin in slits, camouflaging him with the shadows of other puppets and weaponry which laid about. Sasori, now lax in form at the back of the room spoke abruptly upon the mans faintest move, "stay where you are."

After affirming the males pause in motion he spoke again above the mechanic clicks from working the joints in his arm, "keep tight surveillance on him. I have five other subordinates," words stopped mid-command much as his movements, an arm out in front of him and bent upwards at the elbow.

The ex-sandnin bit back a small curse under his breath and grabbed the upright-wrist, snapping off the forearm before he continued, "They are meeting at dawn to discuss the plan of action, I expect a thorough report by noon tomorrow." A quick snap had the arm back in place and moving much smoother than before; first work out the kinks and mechanics than the woodwork and finish. He had a lot of work ahead of him.

"Sasori'sama…"

Auburn hair feathered over vermillion eyes which rolled up towards the voice's birth, "be gone."

"I must ask.." it continued but dropped just as soon with the threat of a sharp spear upon the end of thick metal coil shot out from the shadowed collection of woodwork.

His voice dropped threateningly low, "I said be gone."

Here in Suna the sun dies slowly over large hills of blood-stained sand, the sky became murderous just as the grounds below it. Smooth long metal collapsed to the ground as the body continued on blankly, walking from the scene which almost stole his life if you could have even called it that. A cloak of black and red clouds draped over the broken stretched skin which covered hallowed wood in shreds, hardly concealing his body at all; another blade dropped to the ground. All he could think of was how, how could this have happened? He had managed to escape just in time or, so he thought… it did not take long for him to realize that he had made a lethal miscalculation.

A heavy hand pressed against the cracked-framed door revealing the passageway to an armory tucked away in the outskirts. His feet dragged forward pushing through the old puppet parts and mechanical weaponry, all as broken as he was. Fingers slipped about a metal knob and turned slowly. Here laid his collection, his studio, his art. It had been years since Sasori had been here, the place where many young puppeteer's puppets made birth so long ago; like that boy's.

Sasori's body stilled at the doorway however, a sound of breaking ground heard not far off, "Zetsu'san."

Akatsuki's messenger had found him, Sasori expected no loss however; 'You look badly damaged,' his left side commented, slowly emerging from the ground to mid chest." Just made it out alive?"-'barely'

A crack was made with slight shift in the puppets shoulders, "Do one last thing for me."

"Last request, what might it be?" – 'he is not coming back, I see.'


End file.
